


With you I vow to stand

by Fancyfrenchie



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Alternative Universe- Roman Empire, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Engineer Galen, Gladiator Krennic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 17:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10495710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancyfrenchie/pseuds/Fancyfrenchie
Summary: Crushed beneath the boot of the empire and sent to the arena to die for the amusement of others, bruised and battered, Galen finds a reason to keep on fighting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixxWispp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixxWispp/gifts).



> For phoenixxwisp, we both know it isn't the story I promised you, soon or you know eventually. 
> 
> Just a little opening chapter so I've made a start!

He sits with his hands bound behind his back, coarse rope abrading the tender flesh of his wrists, while the swaying of the wagon causes his nausea to ratchet higher.

 

The smell of smoke is thick in the air, and the last screams of the dying can just be heard as the convoy move off way from the only home he's ever know.

 

Galen shuts his eyes tight against the rush of grief at the loss of not only his wife and child but also at the loss of his village, his parents. Everyone, and everything had been burned to ash before the might of the Holy Roman Empire.

 

Swallowing hard and allowing the enormity of his loss to cloud his mind into shock, he sits still, well aware that will every jolt he is being taken farther and farther from home.

  
He knows he'll never go back.


	2. Chapter 2

They travel for days, it's hard going especially for a man who's barely ever left his village in his life before, it rains incessantly and his clothes are always damp.

 

The soldiers he's travelling with are a mixed bunch of ages and races, however they are all distantly friendly towards him, he had been afraid at first that the soldiers would treat him as a prisoner and deny him the bare essentials of life. He's confused but relieved when he is provided with the same rations as all the other men, allowed to sit by the fire in the evenings and is even provided with a blanket during the night hours. They clearly don't trust him, his hands are never left unbound for very long and he's kept under armed guard at all times, but they are far gentler towards him then he would ever have thought.

 

Gradually as the weeks pass, the weather grows warmer and to his relief dryer. The soldiers don't talk much to him, too busy with their day to day lives to really notice a single lone foreigner. He's glad in a way he knows at the end of this journey, whatever happens, he'll never see them again. It gives him plenty of time to think, his solitude, to process the huge, raw wound inside him that is the loss of his home and his people. He acknowledges during the long spring days of travel that his loss is a wound that will likely never truly heal, alone and grieving he makes his peace with the notion.

 

When they finally arrive at the heart of the empire, Rome, Galen is so weary of travel that he thinks that he wouldn't care what the empire have in store for him, he'll be grateful not to have to spend any more time walking tied to a horse or shut away in a cramped jolting wagon.

 

It's a thought that remains with him right up until he's marched into one of the palaces and finds himself face to face with the Emperor, the bossy, surprisingly short, given the power he wields, grey haired man, is as happy to see him as if they've been friends all their lives.

 

The emperor grabs a hold of his arm, and Galen fights down the urge to lash out at the arrogant, little man, instead allowing himself to be manhandled across the room, to where some tablets, and parchments are lying.

 

“Behold, this is to be the newest glory of Rome!”

 

Galen fights to keep his face blank, as rage surges under his skin as his family's murder gloats over the drawing of a bath house.

 

“Very nice” he replies as evenly as he can manage,hoping his bodies shaking will be mistaken for fear or weakness rather than as a threat. The emperor clearly hears the praise he wishes to hear as he beams sunnily at Galen, who to his horror finds himself reflexively smiling back, before his mind catches up with him and he makes himself stop.

 

“Wine?”

 

He isn't given a chance to refuse before a goblet is shoved into his hands and the rich dark liquid slops over the sides and drips over his fingers, for a moment he stands unable to move watching the ruby liquid drip from his hands and slide over his wrist bone, running over his forearm, just as Jyn’s had as he’d cradled her little body close, after-

 

Shaking more violently now, he screws his eyes closed and taps the heel of his other hand hard against the side of his skull, until the memories recede back into the depths of his unconsciousness, where they will lie in wait until he's too weak to resist them or till he's sleeping and defenseless.

 

When he forces himself out of the half crouch he's curled himself into, and he has prised his eyes open, half surprised, as he always is after these fits, to find himself back in reality and not lost in the nightmare of that day.

 

The Emperor regards him out of liquid brown eyes that almost seem sad for a moment, before he turns away and the moment is lost. He reaches out and closes a hand over Galen's wrist, tugging gently, until he obeys the guiding pressure and steps up to the Emperor's desk and looks again at the drawings.

 

“You will be stationed close to the forum and you will be assigned a team to help you, if you need any supplies or other craftsmen then you must send word at once, this is of the utmost importance.”

 

Galen looks from the drawing to the Emperor and back, as understanding dawns in his mind.

 

“Excuse me?” He can hear his own voice distantly, it's higher pitched than it's ever been since he became a man, possibly since before that too. His body's shaking, having only decreased never ceased entirely picks up anew, as the sinking suspicion that everyone he's ever cared out may have been murdered because the Emperor wants him to build him a new bathroom grows within him.

 

“You'll be provided with food and lodgings” the little man's nasal voice, sounds whiney and even on the best of days it would have ground on his nerves, but at the insinuation that his disbelief is over housing rather than his terrible losses, he loses what little control he has over himself.

 

He doesn't think, like a cornered animal he simply reacts to the painful stimuli, and maddened by pain and grief he seeks to rid himself of the torment. The desire to hurt the other rises thick and dark in his veins, clouding reason from his mind.

 

He throws the goblet in his hand as hard as he can at the other man, and has a moment to exalt as he hears a cry of pain and shock, before the pounding of feet on the floor brings clarity crashing through his awareness.

 

Galen turns to look at the Emperor, who has wine dripping of his face, and soaking into his clothes, and for a moment it's so reminiscent of how the bodies had looked, his head swims and he feels disconnected and nothing makes sense.

  
The feeling of dissociation continues, as he is grabbed under his armpits and is hauled unceremoniously away.


	3. Chapter 3

He gets dumped in a cell, a small damp room, and a guard is posted outside the door. All night long he sits and shivers, not daring to lie down for too long in case he drops off to sleep and doesn't wake up, as happens most winters to someone in the village or one of the surrounding ones. As used to happen, he corrects himself, rage and bitterness flooding his system again, causing his limbs to shake and his vision to blur.

 

The next morning the guards return and he's forced out of the cell at sword point, to his surprise the Emperor is in good mood again, as though his outburst the previous day had never occurred. 

 

“Calmer?” 

 

Galen doesn't move, he can't bring himself to say yes. It feels too much like he's betraying his family. Thankfully the Emperor takes his silence as acceptance, or more likely Galen reflects he doesn't care either way.

 

As he watches the emperor brings out the plans again. He spreads the out before Galen and taps the nearest one, with his index finger. Galen looks down at the drawings, the rage from last night had gone, leaving nothing but cold, calculated despair. He reaches out and shoves the tablets to the floor.

 

When the slap lands on his face, he's surprised. Not at the violence itself, but from the force of it.

 

The emperor is little, and pampered, he doesn't look as though he could inflict pain. Yet Galen reflects as he stands with his ears ringing from the force of the blow, he can pack some power behind a punch.

 

“Perhaps you need some incentive?”

 

Galen squints, confused. He knows, with a certainty he can't put his finger on, that the emperor is not offering him wealth or power. Not that he wants such things.

  
  


Standing in the tunnel of the arena, the roar of the crowd a huge swell of noise that he can feel, in the walls, up through his feet, the very air vibrating with the excitement of Rome’s citizens. Even standing on the edge of what could very well kill him he can feel the energy of the crowd like it's a living thing, it feels to surreal to be frightening.

 

As he's standing he can just see a slither of the arena, a small section of the sand covered floor, and as he watches two men enter his line of sight.

 

Both men are fighting viciously, but Galen can tell just from looking which one is going to win. Despite both men being obviously tired, one is swinging his sword wildly and his footsteps are flat and heavy. While the other is quick and smooth, his movements precise and soon, deadly.

 

Before his eyes, Galen watches as one gladiator side steps the other, and allows the others momentum to carry them forwards. As the exhausted man stumbles forward the gladiator slashes at the back of the others legs and Galen sees the blood as a fine mist in the air. With a scream, the stricken man crumples.

 

The still standing gladiator gesticulates at the crowd who scream back in exhilaration, growing demands and curses in almost equal measure. The fallen gladiator struggles up to his knees, the weight of his armor pulling at him, and Galen can see his fatigued muscles trembling violently under the strain. The standing man steps up behind the fallen and Galen guesses from the way they are standing that he's holding his sword to the other's throat.

 

For a long moment, nothing happens and Galen leans forward as though it will allow him to see through the men and get a clearer idea of what's happening.

 

Then there is a quick movement and he doesn't know what it is, his eyes registering the change without his mind documenting it. Then the kneeling man topples forwards and the other raises a bloody sword in the air.

 

The crowd howls their approval.

 

Galen stares at the widening pool of red around the new corpse and for a moment his mind goes hazy. He feels as though he can smell the blood and he can feel the blood hot and thick on his hands. The way he had when his whole world was torn asunder.

 

A hand closes around his arm and it drags him back into the present, blinking and disoriented. 

 

“You're up” 

 

The emperor looks at him and smirks, “ unless you've changed your mind about working for me? Hmm?”

 

It's the smirk along with the still vivid memories of his family's lifeblood leaking out over the cold, hard ground that makes him refuse. He knows he's going to his death, he's never been a fighter, he's an engineer and scholar, not a fighter.

 

“When you've changed your mind, you will be released from the arena and put to work. You might want to think quickly, though, I've seen your opponent”

 

With the words of encouragement still ringing in his ears, he's hustled forwards and out into the sunshine. A few feet away is the pool of blood from the last fight it's congealing in the heat of the Roman afternoon.

 

When he lays eyes on his opponent he has to agree with the emperor's words that he would need to change his mind quickly if he was going to, as the man before him is huge. Standing head and shoulders over Galen himself, and most irritatingly to Galen’s mind he's armed and wearing armor. While he, himself, is wearing an only tunic and leggings, he lost his shoes a while back. 

 

“Oh brilliant,” he thinks as he watches the heavily armed nutcase hove into view.

 

He stands very still and tells himself that it will all be over soon, he will either pass into the never-ending blackness of death or the gods willing into the afterlife and the company and comfort of his forebearers and his kin.

 

He genuinely means to as well, it's when he is still standing and the man before him is standing so close that Galen can see the whites of his eyes and smell the remains of the other man's lunch on his breath, that his instincts take over. At the sight of a raised weapon, he flinches hard, his body overtaking his mind's resolve and striving to protect him. 

 

He twitches away, his whole body starting like a frightened deer, the big man moves to follow his darting movements, but is unsteady and slides through the pool of blood. He careers forwards and hits the side of the arena with a dull thud and slides sideways, hitting the floor with a thump.

 

Baffled by the outcome Galen blinks up at the crowd, who seem equally bewildered. After the longest few seconds of his life someone out towards the far end of the arena claps.

 

The single sound cuts through the sudden silence that has fallen over the whole colosseum. 

 

Then the crowd takes their prompt and a swell of noise rises as the Romans shriek their approval of his victory.

 

A man hustles towards him and he's tugged off the sand floor of the arena, not into the tunnel he'd come out of but right across the sand expanse of the floor and into a different entrance below the arena itself. He's sat down and a goblet of wine is pressed into his hands, he watches the surface of the liquid ripple and realizes that he's shaking. With fear, or disappointment he doesn't even know himself.

 

“You did well”

 

He glances up, at the man before him, tall, thin almost gaunt looking with pronounced cheekbones and eyes that cut deep, the man is evaluating him closely. Galen shakes his head in denial. “ I didn't..” he tries to explain, but he is cut off by the other man's shrug and disinterested hum.

 

The man turns away and leaves him for a moment and has a brief conversation in a language that Galen cannot understand. A few moments later the emperor appears and Galen tightens his hand on the goblet, considering flinging the second projectile at the odious little man.

 

There is a lot of discussions, then both men turn back and walk towards him.

 

“It seems I have underestimated you.” The emperor looks down at him, his mouth is smiling but his eyes are hard. “ Tarkin believes that you will make for fine entertainment for the good people of Rome, he's bought you fair and square boy, but remember the life of a gladiator is short and brutal. Should you change your mind, send word and you will once again be acquired for the services of Rome.”

 

Galen opens his mouth to tell the emperor… well to cuss him out in the worst terms he knows in his own tongue. He dowubts the man will know what he's saying but a pejorative is understandable no matter what mother tongue a man has.

 

Tarkin slaps a hand over his mouth harshly and slides a hand under his arm, pulling him to his feet. 

 

“Come on, boy, you've got work to do”

 

Bristling at being called a boy, he is lead away. Out of the dim tunnels and into the bright sunshine once again. He's lead throughout the streets in near silence only the huffing of the other man's breath and the noise of the people surrounding them living their lives to be heard.

 

They stop at a walled courtyard, and the gate is opened by an armed guard, and man with orange hair, a color that Galen has never seen before and stares at wonderingly.

 

As soon as they have stepped into the courtyard the gate closes, sealing him into his new prison. He sighs and looks around himself, there are men training up and down the yard. Another man seems to be running them through their paces, he's walking up and down yelling at various men and offering water and pat's on the back to others.

 

As he's hustled through the yard he can feel eyes on him, the battle-hardened men watch him and he feels uncomfortable under the weight of their gazes.

 

Tarkin drops him off with the trainer, Brendol Hux, who doesn't seem impressed with his task of training a beginner. “He's too old to learn now!” He calls after Tarkin's retreating back. Galen privately agrees but feels less than impressed at hearing it shouted across the courtyard. 

 

With a bawl from Hux the rest of the men return to their training with only a few quite grumbles. Galen is set to learning some basic footwork in a corner by himself. 

 

Hours later when he's been shouted at prodded and is hungry and thirsty the training ends and he's hustled inside with the others.

 

“Pullus” 

 

Galen turns knowing they are talking to him, but with his shaky understanding of Latin attempting to.understand why they are calling him a bird.

 

One of the closest men smiles at him and runs a hand along his face. Galen recoils and slaps at his hand angrily. The gladiator looks shocked for a moment then snarls some insult and smacks him across the face. Other gladiators swarm closer and he backs away until his back meets the wall and he faces a semicircular ring of fighters before him. The same man reaches out and he spits at him and there is a ripple of laughter throughout the room. The man's face hardens and he takes a step forward until they are chest to chest. 

 

Galen can feel the gladiators heart pounding alongside his own and can feel sweat forming on his brow and gathers his strength forcing his weary body into alertness, readying himself to fight.

 

Then the crowd melts away, dissolving like a mist on a hot morning, as a tall, fairly well built older man strides up. He glares at the others, his blue eyes hard and unforgiving and they melt off into the shadows and corners of the room. The newcomer grabs the arm of Galen's assailant and the man turns his face paling as he sees who has a hold on him.

 

There follows a rapid conversation as the newcomer angrily points between Galen and himself. The other gladiator slinks away, his ears red and his shoulders set. The newcomer links his arm through Galen's and leads him away. Numbly he follows, wondering if he's quietly going to his death at the hands of this man. The way the other man walks is familiar though, and it tugs on the fringes of his memory as they walk along.

 

It's not until they walk into a dimly lit little room, a candle burning in an alcove cut out of the wall, and the door has swung shut behind them that the recollection strikes and he recognize the gladiator that murdered a stranger in front of his eyes.

  
  
  



End file.
